2012 The Secret Teachings of the Next Door Neighbour

by Frauke and Simon Lewer

Paul strode along, under the heavy grey skies, the dull roar of the traffic on the motorway carried towards him by the gusty wind, his mind magnetized back to the mystery of the Magur woman.

  There was something about her, he pondered, his black brogues squelching with every step, that was unnervingly compelling, demanding his attention, but he’d be nuts to believe some neanderthal apparition from the past, rather than his own good sense. Everything had happened so fast, Paul just hadn't had time to think it all through and weigh up the evidence. Would he even be able to explain to Julie the complications he was struggling to comprehend?

  For example, that dream last night.

  The images hadn’t hazed over and faded back into a recess of his mind like dreams normally did but instead they were there, the whole sequence embedded on his memory, the feeling of fear still vividly in reach.

  Could it be his own stress and anxiety, or had the Magur put them in his mind? Was she trying to tell him Earth had been invaded by aliens?

  Because if she was, she’d taken things one more step beyond credibility, he decided.

  But what about the Agents? They were certainly real, Paul could vouch for that, and how in God’s name had they known where he’d stayed last night?

  The motorway bridge was closer now and Paul could see the steady stream of trucks and cars passing across it and away into the distance.

  As he neared the bridge, Paul caught sight of something moving in the shadows beneath the bulky concrete pillars. Someone was there already!

  Could it be an Agent?

  He checked his step, wary, ready to turn and run.

  He was no more than ten paces away when the figure stepped out into the open and Paul let out a huge breath of relief, aware suddenly of quite how tense he’d been.

  Paul wished for a moment he had a camera. The picture in front of him of the Magur, her snaking ornament hung dreadlocks, her roughly stitched cape of animal fur and the gnarled wooden staff she carried, made a spectacular contrast to the stark, modern reality of the graffiti-scrawled, concrete underpass.

  The Magur’s face wrinkled into a smile as she stood motionless, calmly awaiting him, and immediately Paul could feel her enigmatic magic working on him, melting his resolve, bending him to her will. He’d have to tell her of his decision before he faltered.

  ‘You know Agents turned up this morning?’ he blurted out as they stood face to face.

  Her smile faded as she replied, ‘Yes, I know. Every time the fabric of reality is opened, it is visible to the Invaders. If I am going to teach you what I need to, we are going to have to be very careful.’

  She fell into step beside him and together they walked on under the bridge, the traffic thundering over their heads.

  ‘So that ‘was’ you, making me dream that stuff. I knew it!’ Paul declared.

  ‘Yes,’ the Magur replied, ‘In order to comprehend the importance of your role at this crucial moment, I believe some knowledge of the events of your history is essential.’

  Paul protested,

  ‘I do know my history,’ he asserted, as they came out of the shadow of the bridge under the open sky. ‘No, I’m sorry, but if that stuff in my dream about alien invasions had really happened they’d have left some traces, some artifacts. Archaeologists would have found something and we’d know about it. It would be written into the history books.’

  The Magur turned her dark eyes filled with compassion towards him,

  ‘You know nothing,’ she stated, ‘beyond what you have been taught. Your version of history has been edited and rewritten countless times till nothing of the truth remains.’

  She paused briefly and Paul could hear only the receding noise of traffic buffeted on the wind and the steady squelch from his wet shoes.

  ‘You must understand the history of your planet has been purposefully concealed in order to control you.’

  Paul looked up at the clouds racing over the surrounding expanse of grey, stubble covered fields. He took a deep breath and tried to put his thoughts into some kind of order of priority. He felt the Magur was already taking his mind off at a tangent he didn’t necessarily want to go down.

  ‘OK, OK, lets just suppose the alien Invaders and the Agents are the same, yeah? And all that stuff in my dream really happened; the invasion, taking the people captive and now they’re secretly controlling the planet right?’ The Magur nodded, listening. ‘Well, what I want to know is what’s it got to do with me? Why should I take on your crystal carrying job?’

  The Magur was silent a moment before replying,

  ‘You have been chosen ... I do not know why. Now you are involved, you have seen too much of the Agents for them to let you off free. If you hand yourself in, you have everything to lose. Those who discover the invader’s true identity do not walk away alive.’

  ‘Well, what about Elodie’s society?’ Paul countered.

  ‘They, unlike you, have no direct knowledge of the Agents.’

  ‘I could ditch the crystal first, they can’t prove a thing,’ Paul stated.

  ‘You do not comprehend what you are up against ... With their advanced technology they can read your mind as easily as I can.’

  Paul remembered the sneer of contempt on the Agents face back in his flat, as he’d said “he knows nothing”, and that unreal sentence he’d overheard in the Gare du Nord. Could she be right?

  ‘Yes of course I am right,’ she said, ‘That Agent in your flat was looking into your mind. He could see that you knew nothing ... but now you do.’

  Paul stared open mouthed at her for a moment,

  ‘No, I don’t believe it! That was just luck!’ Paul declared, thoroughly unnerved by the way she’d continued the thread of conversation as if his thoughts had been spoken aloud.

  ‘OK then, what am I thinking now?’ he challenged, searching around in his mind for a random memory, something the Magur couldn’t possibly know about. An image of Julie’s Volvo engine blowing up popped into his mind, the suddenness of the bang and the plume of black smoke streaming from under the bonnet.

  The Magur said,

  ‘You had argued that morning with your wife about your plans to move out. She left in anger, with your children, ready for school. You followed her to the door ...’ She smiled smugly before continuing, ‘The explosion made you jump and she has been driving your car ever since.’

  Paul’s jaw dropped, astounded, as the Magur continued to speak.

  ‘It’s as easy for the Invaders to read your thoughts as it is for me, although the process is different. You can never conceal the part you have already played in this story.’

  Paul thought for a moment. If the Magur could read his mind like that, why not the Invaders as well? If what she was telling him was really true, he was in trouble.

  ‘Indeed,’ smiled the Magur, ‘our only option is forward. But it is imperative that you separate your thoughts from both the crystal and Alesia.’

  ‘Well, that’s all very well for you to say but how can I, with it sat here burning a hole in my pocket?’

  ‘If either of them come into your consciousness, breathe and focus yourself on the moment, on the things that surround you, the mundane.’

  Paul looked perplexed and shrugged,

  ‘Well, I’ll try,’ he conceded.

  ‘Trying not to think of it is useless, you must actively direct your thoughts elsewhere or they will trace you.’

  ‘OK,’ he said slowly, trying to bring the conversation back to the point, ‘understanding that this crystal,’ he patted his pocket, ‘is so damn important and I’m not allowed to think about it, why don’t you take it yourself?’

  ‘I cannot,’ the Magur replied, ‘I am anchored to the past. The opening at solstice will be in your time, your dimension and it must be someone from here and now who places the crystal and re-connects my dimension to yours. Besides,’ the Magur smiled, ‘I believe you will need me on the other side to help create the opening.’

  A thought
struck Paul suddenly, ‘So if Elodie was doing it, like she was obviously meant to, you wouldn’t have had to help?’

  ‘No, she had been trained in dimensional jumping. You have not.’

  Paul wrinkled his forehead in confusion, ‘I don’t get it,’ he stated, ‘I mean, so where are you from?’

  ‘As I have said, I live in a next door dimension, existing parallel with your own. A handful of us Magur have survived and managed to live on, hidden, in a time-sealed reality, waiting for this moment to be reunited with you.’

  As far as Paul could see, this was getting more and more complicated and further and further from the issue he wanted to sort out, each statement of the Magur’s throwing up another handful of questions, branching off at different angles.

  ‘Hang on - let’s get this clear. Elodie can’t do it cause she’s on the run somewhere. You can’t do it because ... of all that stuff, but, why can’t someone else do it? I bet there are loads of people who’d jump at the job.’

  ‘I believe you have been chosen. All things are layered with purpose and meaning. Besides,’ she continued, ‘we are short of time to find another crystal bearer and you, at least, have met the Invaders and have no other options.’

  The answer wasn’t totally satisfactory but Paul passed it by as another question sprang to mind.

  ‘OK, so say it has to be me who takes this crystal to Alesia and suppose I manage without getting caught, what’s it going to do? I mean, how’s it going to help anything?’

  ‘You can think of the crystal as the spark that will jump start the Earth’s energy grid -’

  Paul interrupted, ‘Energy grid? Is that the same thing as ley-lines?’

  ‘Yes, the ley-lines transmit the pulse of life throughout the planet and it is this pulse that gives all beings their life-force. The crystal will reopen the grid and once the original earth-lines are restored, the Invaders will be forced to leave.’

  ‘What, just like that?’ Paul asked.

  ‘The vibration will be too high for them to maintain physicality.’

  Paul looked quizzically across at the Magur as she continued.

  ‘The Invaders only hold control in your reality by creating their own electromagnetic grid. Through their skill with technology they use antennae to broadcast the frequency that allows them to access Earth.’

  ‘So, to break this down a bit,’ said Paul, ‘I put the crystal in your stone circle, the Agents vanish, the “terrorist” charge against me will be dropped, I’ll get my passport and wallet back, get out of these daft clothes and go home and see my kids?’

  The Magur smiled, her eyes twinkling,

  ‘If you succeed ... yes.’

  Paul thought hard, his forehead creased in concentration. Was he really going to let her talk him into this madness? Or should he stick to his guns and phone Julie and his lawyer?

  ‘Everyone connected with you is being monitored. The moment you pick up a telephone your call will be traced,’ the Magur quietly informed him.

  Shit! She was probably right.

  Maybe the best way to get his life back would be to do as she wanted. He was going to have to make a decision one way or the other. He strode along, hoping the gusty wind that blew cold on his face and sent his hair flying behind him, would blow some clarity into his befuddled mind.

  Finally, he shrugged and said,

  ‘I’m pretty good at jumping ditches but I’ve not a clue about jumping dimensions.’ Paul looked the Magur straight in the eye, ‘I guess, what I’m trying to say is, just so we’re both clear, I haven't understood half of what you’ve said,’ he took a much needed breath, ‘but, the way my options are looking, you tell me where to go and what to do and how to do it and I’ll give it a shot. Reserving the right to quit if I want,’ he added quickly.

  The winter afternoon had been darkening as they walked, and now, coming down the road towards them, its headlights cutting through the dusk, Paul could see a car approaching.

  ‘We would be wise to hide,’ the Magur said, ducking down into the ditch at the roadside and pushing through a thin, straggly, thorn hedge. Paul followed slightly less gracefully, holding his jacket around himself to prevent it getting snagged. The car passed by without incident and Paul let himself be led around the edge of the field towards a small copse on the far side.

  The walking was tough going in the fading light, the mud sticking to Paul’s shoes, making his feet heavy and clumpy, and the straw stubble scratched his ankles. They walked in silence for a while, Troyes just visible as an orange glow reflected onto the clouds behind them.

  When they reached the copse, they stopped and Paul leant against the mossy bark of a tree, needing to catch his breath for a moment.

  When the Magur started walking again, Paul followed, finding a peculiar relief and freedom in relinquishing resistance, letting go of responsibility for his actions.

  They skirted the edge of the copse in single file before cutting diagonally across a grassy field and squeezing through the strands of a barbed wire fence to find themselves once again on the side of a road. Two cars streaked by in a roar of noise and glare of headlights before Paul and the Magur gingerly climbed up the embankment to stand on the tarmac. As they started to walk again, another question in this riddle sprang to mind. What was the significance of winter solstice 2012, he wondered? Why did it have to be that specific moment, just three days from now?

  Although he hadn’t asked the question aloud, the Magur answered him, smoothly continuing their conversation as if there had been no break in its flow.

  ‘The iron core of planet Earth will be in perfect alignment with the Galactic centre at that moment.’

  ‘Galactic centre? What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘It is as it sounds,’ she replied, ‘the centre of the galaxy around which we revolve. The moment of alignment is a time of great power and potential for change. You can think of it as the magic hour, when all things become possible.’

  Paul was confused and waited for a further explanation,

  ‘This moment has the potential for the installation of a new frequency on the planet,’ the Magur continued. ‘There are three possible outcomes from this point,’ she said, trudging steadily ahead, her silhouette hazy in the evening gloom. Paul jogged to keep up, the clutching tendrils of roadside brambles catching on his legs.

  ‘Which are?’ he panted as he fell in step with her.

  ‘One, if we succeed in installing the new frequency the Invader’s power will be broken and humanities DNA will have the conditions it needs to re-connect and heal.’

  ‘Sounds all very jolly,’ Paul replied sarcastically, ‘What about number 2?’

  ‘If we fail to place the crystal, the Invaders hold the planet for another galactic cycle, climaxing in another armageddon and humanities enslavement continues ...’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Paul interrupted, ‘we’re not enslaved! I mean, slavery was abolished in 18 something or other.’

  The Magur stopped walking and turned to face Paul, staring at him gravely,

  ‘You are a genetically manipulated being,’ she stated, ignoring Paul’s exclamation of protest, ‘You have been tampered with, your DNA reduced from its full 12 strands to just the 2 essential to your physical functioning.’

  Paul stared back defiant,

  ‘No-way, that’s nuts! Everyone knows DNA is a double helix, 2 strands,’ he held up two fingers to make his point, ‘that’s the way it’s always been. I’m not buying that genetic engineering bosh!’

  ‘Your scientific insights are in their infancy. What you call “junk DNA” is in fact unplugged genetic programming,’ the Magur said, staring back at him without flinching,

  ‘Do you really believe yourself to be a true inhabitant of Earth?’ she asked sternly, continuing before Paul had time to answer. ‘Look at your behavior ... would a true earth dweller create war? radioactive waste? Pollution of the oceans? Deforestation? Species extinction? Oil spills? Pesticides?
’

  Paul felt himself quailing in front of the Magur’s intense verbal ferocity, unsure how to defend his point.

  ‘Anyway,’ he commented, trying to change the subject, ‘you haven’t told me possible option number three yet.’

  ‘You are caught, the Invaders gain possession of the crystal and Earth’s greatest hope of liberation is lost for ever.’

  ‘Wow ... ‘ said Paul, ‘Bummer.’

  In a way he wished he’d never asked the question. There he was, only a few minutes ago thinking he didn’t have responsibility and now she was telling him that the little egg in his pocket would one way or other change the future of the whole planet for eternity?

  Nope, from beginning to end it was all too crazy.

  He’d agreed to take on her delivery job but that didn’t mean he could be expected to believe all this stuff.

  Prehistoric genetic engineering?

  He was sorry but she’d gone too far, yet again.

  ‘Come,’ the Magur said simply, leading Paul off the road onto leaf covered soil beneath a stand of tall beach trees.

  ‘If your mind will not accept my truth, I am left with no choice but to risk our safety and make you see with your own eyes the darkness of your past.’

  Abruptly her tone changed,

  ‘Sit!’ she commanded and Paul did as he was told.

  As soon as his back touched the trunk of the tree he saw the Magur’s bony arm reach out from under her furs and winced as her index finger extended, as it had before, and he felt that sharp, almost painful pressure between his eyes.

  Instantly the dark, damp roadside vanishes and Paul finds himself in an opulent, luxuriously furnished, conference hall.

  At one end, on an ornately carved throne inlaid with gold filigree and sparkling stones, sits the now familiar figure of the Commander.

  Across the chamber, seated around a long, rectangular table are, twenty or so people, a handful of them wearing white doctors coats.

  The Commander speaks in a ringing, authoritative tone,

  ‘As you are all well aware, with six thousand years until the end-time, the moment has come to seed Re’s legions.’

  He lets his eyes run slowly up and down the rows of attentive, upturned faces.

  ‘This time we must learn from the mistakes of our predecessors and produce beings with full physical strength and reproductive capabilities. Have my orders been followed?’

  A white coated man rises to answer,

  ‘Yes Sir, our genetic trials were positive. We have cut as much DNA as possible. Their chakra links have been terminated and they are disconnected from the planet’s field,’ he pauses, ‘although we have come across a problem ...’

  ‘Which is?’ the Commander inquires icily.

  ‘If we are not to clone this time and must leave their sexuality intact, we are leaving them an opportunity to re-connect their DNA. Sexuality and emotion are encoded together ...’

  In an instant the scenery changes and Paul finds himself standing in a spacious but windowless corridor, a row of doors opening off from it on both sides. It is lit with a clinical, white, artificial light and Paul has to blink several times, wincing as his eyes grow accustomed to the glare.

  The corridor is filled with a bustling intensity, doors opening and closing, the white coated scientists hurrying past each other, intent on their work.

  Paul watches them for a minute, before, his curiosity aroused, he decides to investigate.

  A few yards away a door has been left ajar and he slips quietly through.

  He is in a long, rectangular room filled with work tables and lined with deep, stainless steel shelves.

  He can see several scientists busying themselves at the far end of the room, but they seem to be unaware of his presence.

  Paul’s confidence grows and he steps up to the nearest table.

  It is covered with an array of high-tech, scientific equipment.

  Small, glass dishes and ceramic bowls are stacked in labelled lines.

  Rows of shiny metallic boxes emit a gentle, electric hum.

  Paul lifts the lid of the nearest one and recoils back in horror.

  Inside the box are layers of shallow compartments, and each one contains an embryo, a tiny human fetus no bigger than a mouse.

  Paul replaces the lid quickly and makes his way across to the shelves at the edge of the room, where the walls are stacked with glass-topped boxes.

  He peers inside the nearest one and sure enough, in each one is a human baby, white skinned, large-headed, suspended in a clear-fluid.

  He can see their tiny fingers and toes, their umbilical cords hooked up to a drip-feed tank above them.

  Before he’d has time to digest the horrific implications of what he’s just witnessed, the scene dissolves to be replaced yet again by the Commander’s conference hall.

  As before, many people are seated around the rectangular table, though this time the Commander is pacing the length of the room as he listens to a report .

  ‘The breeding program is advancing well and the legions are rapidly multiplying, though their emotional connection, most notably the “love” strand is, as we feared, causing disruption to our agenda. They feel their loss and are searching for reconnection.’

  The Commander turns, to raise a question.

  ‘Could we not find a way to fill this emptiness and provide them with the things they are seeking? In this way we could turn the problem to our advantage.’

  Another man, distinctly similar in looks to an Agent, rises to speak,

  ‘Perhaps we could give them laws and beliefs to follow.’

  The semblance of a smile passes over the Commander’s face, the idea obviously pleasing him as he announces,

  ‘Let Re’s legions be instructed in the laws of us, their gods and let them revere us as all seeing and all powerful.’

  ‘Let each race be instructed in the doctrine of a separate God. In that way we can create conflict between opposing doctrines.’

  Paul gasps as the vision starts to fade, and in seconds he is back in the darkness, his head resting on the damp, mossy bark of a tree and a pair of ancient, dark eyes peering intently at him in the gloom.

  ‘So that’s the start of humanity is it?’ Paul asked angrily. ‘Our lives and our beliefs are nothing more than a test-tube experiment?’

  The Magur answered him calmly, not reacting in any way to his aggression,

  ‘The Invaders mixed their own sperm with the tampered Magur female egg. And from this mixture a new race was born. This new human was lighter skinned, without body hair, tall and upright. They reached sexual maturity at a much earlier age then the ancient Magur, facilitating a rapid breeding cycle. They had the greater analytical intelligence of the Invaders, yet also their lack of emotional depth and spiritual awareness.’

  Paul wasn’t clear why he was so angry as he listened to the Magur’s words, but he felt strangely affronted.

  How dare this savage from the past turn up and sweep the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the human race into the dustbin. He might not be religious but it was his heritage and he resented its validity being challenged. But it was worse than that, Paul realized, this idea threatened the basis of who he was and if it was true, it compelled him to reconsider his whole identity as a human.

  The Magur said nothing more as Paul sat, dazedly coming to terms with her words and the vision he’d just been shown, her eyes beaming gentle compassion toward him, giving him time to digest this new perspective.

  Two cars rushed noisily past on the wet road, one close behind the other, their tyres powering through the puddles on the verge and Paul watched their red taillights recede into the night in a daze. Something about the Magur’s presence beside him seemed to expand the horizons of his credibility and abate his frustration, leaving him room to think.

  Could all this really be true? Could humanities ancestry really be quite so grim?

  He shuddered at the thought of those soulless, eff
icient aliens being his forefathers. Paul had never really given humanities origins too much thought.

  He’d always presumed, since the biblical Adam and Eve story was such obvious bosh, that Darwin’s theory of evolution must be right. He’d never stopped to think there could be other scenarios, untold other possibilities lurking in the history of the Earth.

  But then really, when you thought about it, this theory kind of slotted in with Darwin’s. The jump from Neanderthal man to Homo Sapiens, explained by what went on in the Commander’s disturbing laboratories?

  Maybe not only evolution was true, but bizarrely, the Bible had the other half of the story, “man made in the image of god.”

  Wouldn’t it be strange if the real truth lay in the synthesis of both stories?

  The Magur interrupted his train of thought,

  ‘You must remember, though you are the child of the Invaders and you have inherited their physical appearance and many of their destructive traits, you are also the child of the original Earth people, the Magur, and as such a human, you are at the cutting edge of evolution. The wisdom and power of your Magur lineage still exists, waiting to be healed, inside every cell of your body.’

  ‘Yeah, great consolation,’ Paul said bitterly. He wasn’t sure which idea he found the most unpalatable; humanity being created in a laboratory or the Invader’s installation of ready made religion. Something deep inside him rebelled against both ideas, desperately wanting to discredit their validity.

  ‘So if you’re saying that the Commander created religion, all religions,’ he corrected himself, ‘what about before? Didn’t the Magur have religious beliefs?’

  The Magur was silent a moment, thinking before she replied,

  ‘I know it is hard for you to understand but we have profound differences. You are tampered with, broken and vulnerable. You do not know who you are or quite what your place in the Universe is, and so naturally you are searching outside of yourselves for what you can feel is missing. Your religions handed to you by the Invaders are nothing more than constructs for your own suppression, instilling fear, guilt and sin into your consciousness.’

  The Magur paused, but when Paul said nothing she continued,

  ‘Whereas we, the Magur, not being broken, need nothing to make us whole because no part of us is lost we have nothing to find. Without the concept of sin we have no need of forgiveness. In the eternal moment we are our own Gods. If we could be said to revere anything, it is the spark of life that inhabits every atom of the multiverse.

  Yeah, Paul thought to himself, he could kind of see what she was saying but still religion wasn’t all bad was it? It had it’s good sides.

  ‘What about Jesus?’ he asked.

  ‘The man you call Jesus was one of many humans at that time who succeeded in raising their frequency. Their DNA began to re-bundle and heal, returning to them their innate power and freedom. The Invaders saw the threat and countered it with the might of the Roman legions. The uprising of the human spirit was crushed and their ideologies twisted to birth another suppressive, controlling religion.’

  Paul thought for a moment, trying to process her ideas, to make room for them inside his mind. If all religions were as simple and unified as the Magur’s beliefs there could be no ideological conflict, he realised. It was common knowledge that most of the warfare and bloodshed on the planet was fueled by religious differences.

  The Magur broke Paul from his reverie with a touch on his arm.

  Her tone was urgent.

  ‘Come, it is time to move ...’

  Paul rose to his feet and tripping over tree roots and snagging on brambles, he made his way back to the roadside ditch following the Magur. In the distance he could hear the low rumble of a diesel engine and see the naked silhouettes of tree tops illuminated in the high beam of its headlights.

  Again the Magur urged him forward.

  ‘This is your lift,’ she said, motioning towards the lights in the distance.

  How could she know? Paul wondered, glancing across at the approaching points of light.

  He looked back to ask a question but in the space where she had been there were only damp branches, leaf mould and darkness.

  There was nothing for it ...

  Paul leapt the ditch, landing heavily on the verge and stumbled into the centre of the road.

  The headlights were a dazzling glare in his eyes now and he was forced to squint as he waved his arms over his head. With Agents possibly already aware of where he was and imminently arriving, the situation felt too urgent to politely stick out his thumb in the hope the driver might stop.

  He heard the engine revs race as the driver changed down a gear and braked.

  Paul stepped to the side of the road as an enormous, bull-nosed truck rolled to a stop alongside him, a whoosh of compressed air escaping from its brakes.

  Even in the dark he could see it was an old vehicle, the side-doors battered and dented, their paint work scabby with rust spots.

  The passenger window wound down and a thin face wearing mirrored sunglasses looked him up and down.

  Paul froze as his mind leapt to the obvious conclusion.

  It was an Agent!

  As soon as he thought it, he realized he was getting jumpy with paranoia.

  All the Agents he’d seen had the same respectably short, side-combed hair and angular impassive faces, whilst the guy in the truck was wearing a trilby hat perched on a tangle of shoulder length, brown curls and was grinning broadly, as he said something Paul couldn’t hear to the driver.

  Had he been recognized? Paul wondered, a constriction of fear tightening his chest for a moment.

  Of course he hadn’t!

  With two days stubble and this ridiculous garb on, Paul knew he looked a world away from the clean-cut, respectably dressed version of himself, broadcast on yesterday’s news.

  The guy turned back to Paul and asked him a question.

  The language was one that Paul had never heard but then languages had never been his strong point.

  Paul shrugged hopelessly, the guy’s grin broadened and he shouted down over the purr of the engine,

  ‘Dijon?’ waving a map as he said it.

  Paul’s face lit up and he nodded vigorously. Wasn’t that where Crousti had said Alesia was, somewhere past Dijon?

  The door swung open and Paul heaved himself up and climbed in.

  The second passenger seat was entirely taken up with a huge round of healthy looking bread and a knobbly dried sausage, so Paul squeezed behind it to sit on a raised, narrow mattress, a large southern rebel flag hanging behind him.

  The door slammed out the night, the driver crunched the gear stick into 1st and they pulled off.

  Paul took a good look at his latest traveling companions. They were an extraordinary pair, both dressed in cheap, shiny, matching jackets and trousers, surprisingly crisp, white shirts and thin, black ties.

  The driver had a dark ponytail, snaking down his back, the hair over his forehead slicked back heavily with grease, and an enormous pair of meticulously trimmed, pointed sideburns.

  On the dashboard, between neat stacks of CD’s sat his identical trilby and mirrored shades.

  The windscreen had a row of garish bunting pinned across it at the top and stickers from what looked like every hard Rock Cafe in Europe at each side, so that, together with the cluttered dashboard, Paul had to crane his neck down uncomfortably to see the open road ahead.

  The driver, half turning, shouted a question at Paul.

  Paul again shrugged hopelessly before falling back on his good english manners, he thrust his hand out, saying loudly,

  ‘Paul, very pleased to meet you.’

  The driver grinned, shaking his hand and replied,

  ‘Jurgis ....’

  Paul reached to the drivers mate, who also shook his hand, throwing Paul into confusion as he briefly clasped it and then bumped fists with him.

  ‘Petras ...’ he shouted good-naturedly. ‘Ar norite
kai kurie maisto?’

  Then rubbing his stomach and pointing his thumb at his mouth, he did a quick mime of chewing and swallowing, so that even if Paul could make nothing of his words, their meaning was clear. Paul nodded vigorously as he watched Petras pick up a huge, vicious looking hunting knife from the dashboard.

  Carrying on preparing sandwiches, Petras cut wafer thin slices of salami and Paul could feel his stomach churning and cramping in anticipation as he looked on.

  How long was it since he’d last eaten, he wondered? Getting on for 24 hours he reckoned, back at the punk’s farm. He’d obviously slept the best part of the day away and from then till now there had been just too much going on for him to spare a thought for food. But as Petras put the finishing touches on their sandwiches, Paul knew he was ravenous, hungrier than he could ever remember being.

  As they approached an intersection he saw out of the side window, the unmistakable sight of blue flashing lights racing towards them. The truck powered past the junction and the lights were lost to view behind an alley of tall trees but Paul didn’t need to see them to have a pretty good idea of where they were going.

  Petras passed him a sandwich so thick he could barely get his teeth round it and Paul set to eating, remembering the Magur’s advice to keep his mind free of fear and firmly focused on the food in front of him.

  It was delicious and he had to force himself to eat slowly, when all he wanted to do was cram it into his mouth as fast as it would go down. Paul couldn’t believe how fantastic it tasted, with a richness of flavor that would beat any five star restaurant in the world.

  He wondered as he ate what nationality his hosts were, after all, it would be nice if he could at least thank them properly for the lift and food. An idea came to him and he reached to the back cover of their road map, where the countries of Europe were listed with their flags and pointing at the Union Jack, he said,

  ‘Me ... English.’

  Petra’s face lit up,

  ‘Ah! Hellohowareyou?’ he said in one breath.

  ‘Good,’ Paul smiled, ‘thanks for the lift guys and the sandwich, I really appreciate it ...’

  Petras was still grinning vacantly, obviously not understanding a word of what Paul was saying, the “hellohowareyou” being the height of his english linguistic skills.

  ‘Oh well, it was worth a try,’ Paul said, and then pointing at the map, ‘You?’

  Petras ran his finger down the tiny, colored symbols stopping at a yellow, green and red striped flag. Paul screwed up his eyes to read the small print.

  ‘Lithuania?’

  Shit, well, there was a language of which he knew precisely no words. Paul and Petras both grinned helplessly as they each realized their total inability to communicate with each other.

  Petras reached again into a metal box at his feet, pulling out a liter bottle of clear liquid with an optic screwed on the top and expertly filled two shot glasses, passing one to Paul,

  ‘Sveikata!’

  ‘Cheers!’

  Paul sniffed it cautiously, until spurred on by Petras he knocked it back, enjoying the burn of vodka on his tongue and throat and the glow of warmth that passed down into his stomach.

  When he passed his glass back, Petras instantly refilled it.

  ‘Jus megstate muzika?’ he asked, pressing the play button on the CD player.

  The cab was suddenly filled with the heavy guitar chords of a rock band, so loud he could hardly hear the engine’s steady roar.

  Paul recognized the track, Neil Young’s “Hey, hey, My, my”. It had been on one of the first albums he’d ever bought, back in the good old days of vinyl and he’d listened to it over and over in his bedroom.

  The driver, Jurgis, began beating his hands on the steering wheel, matching the drum beat and singing tunelessly along, while Petras shook his long hair in front of his face and strummed an air guitar.

  A wave of well-being swept through Paul’s body as the good food and shots of vodka found their way into his bloodstream and uncharacteristically he heard himself launching into song. Despite the lack of practice, Paul had always been quietly proud of his deep, rich voice and ability to hold a tune.

  Both the Lithuanians looked round approvingly as Paul’s baritone burst over them and all three voices joined together for the final chorus.

  The white lines of the road rolled by under their wheels and Petras took them on a tour of the 60’s and 70’s rock greats, neatly fading one track into the next, they moved through Led Zeppelin, the Stones, the Byrds and Canned Heat. Paul leaned back on one elbow, his head touching the back of the cab, joining in whenever he knew the words.

  The damp night and the worrying situation he was in faded blissfully away as Paul let himself sink into the pleasures of music and a full stomach.

  After an hour of so, Jurgis pulled the truck off the road into a big gravel lay-by. Paul looked questioningly forward and Petras held a plastic thermos upside down saying,

  ‘Padaryti Kavos.’

  They all climbed out, leaving the doors open, letting the truck lights and a Lynyrd Skynyrd track spill out into the silent night.

  The heavy cloud of the afternoon and evening had broken up into ragged tatters racing each other across the sky and a sprinkle of stars twinkled down from the velvet blackness between them.

  They lined up on the verge, three streams of urine pattering onto the wet grass. Petras unlocked a hatch on the truck body revealing a gas bottle and two-ring gas burner. He filled an italian espresso pot and set it on the flame while Paul stood gazing around himself.

  If any Agents had been alerted by the vision he’d been shown, they’d surely lost him by now, he thought contentedly, looking from left to right down the deserted country road, dark woods and fields stretching off uninterrupted on both sides.

  “Sweet home Alabama ...

  Lord I’m coming home to you ...”

  drifted out across the expanse of gravel, swelling as the sound was buffeted by gusts of wind.

  He loved this song and it brought memories flooding back from when he and Julie had been dating, going to rock discos in Nottingham on a Friday night. He wiped a tear impatiently from the corner of his eye. It was strange, he thought, as he wandered back to the truck how a memory could make you feel happy and sad at the same time.

  He gratefully accepted a tiny glass of strong, sickly sweet coffee from Petras, who looked him up and down, from the ruins of his mud splattered shoes to his oversized, fur lined jacket and burst into laughter. He plucked at Paul’s multicolored floppy jumper, shaking his other hand rapidly in scorn.

  Paul had to laugh as well. These guys might dress oddly in their blues-brothers combos but he knew he looked downright ludicrous.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he said, ‘You’re just jealous. Just you wait till Punk gets to Lithuania!’

  They climbed back into the cab and set off, the kilometers clicking away on the tarmac strip beneath them, Petras constantly serving coffee to Jurgis and coffee and vodka chasers to himself and Paul, whilst searching tracks and taking CD’s in and out of the player.

  Enjoyable as the ride was, there was one niggling thing that couldn’t be ignored. His feet.

  They were damp and cold, his shoes heavy and squelching with water. Hoping no-one would object, he pulled them off, upending them on the floor and peeled his mud-streaked, clammy socks over his ankle and heel, revealing a pair of swollen, pink feet that he hardly recognized as his own.

  He hung his socks above a heater vent and wiggled his toes to the beat. Petras turned round and holding his nose with one hand, he grabbed the socks to show Jurgis. They both burst into guffaws of laughter and Petras wound down the window, chucking them flamboyantly out onto the passing roadside.

  ‘But my...’ Paul began, unsure how to react, when Petras clapped him on the shoulder and then reaching into a sports bag, he formally presented him with a folded, clean pair of white, woolen socks.

  ‘Wow! Are you sure?’ Paul asked.<
br />
  Petras shoved the socks into his hands and mimed putting them on.

  ‘Thanks,’ Paul said, unfolding them and smiling his gratitude. He pulled them onto his feet, luxuriating in their cosy warmth. Paul had had plenty of socks given to him for Christmas over the years but he’d never appreciated any of them like he did this pair. He wished he could give them something back, some kind of repayment but he knew he had absolutely nothing. Of course, it occurred to him, supposing the Magur’s tale was true, he might just be able to save the world for them, but he definitely wasn’t about to tell them that.

  If it had been the other way round, Paul thought, would he even have stopped for a solitary hitchhiker in the night, let alone have shown the spontaneous generosity of these guys?

  Rather than have given his socks to a total stranger, he would have thought it was their own stupid fault for hiking in the wrong shoes.

  The honesty of the realization gave him a twinge of momentary discomfort.

  He’d never come across such deep kindness as he had in the last two days, he realised, but then again he’d never been put into situations like this. He’d always believed the world was full of people like himself, busy putting number one first. That’s what you’d presume was true from reading the papers, but then again, “Random Acts of generosity to hitchhiker” would hardly make a sensational headline. But still, in a world filled with greed and suspicion, it was incredible luck to meet people as generous and open as the punks, Petras and Jurgis.

  Maybe it wasn’t luck, he pondered, maybe the Magur had something to do with it?

  After all, she had conjured up out of thin air both of his lifts. No sooner had he thought of her, than he heard her unmistakable voice in his ears.

  ‘It is time to get out.’

  Paul looked around perplexed. She couldn’t have materialized into the lorry cab, could she?

  ‘Get out at the next junction,’ her voice continued.

  Ahead, Paul could see a string of orange lights intersecting the road, and beyond, the hazy glow of a city. He couldn’t help feel the moment was significant when Petras put on Credence Clearwater Revival’s, “Bad Moon Rising” and ahead, over the shimmering haze of Dijon, a slim, silver, waxing moon hovered between parting clouds.

  He tapped Jurgis on the shoulder, miming the cab door opening and waggling two fingers to show himself walking away. Jurgis nodded and changed down a gear to stop at the approaching, deserted roundabout, while Paul hastily squeezed his shoes on.

  A minute later, they’d said their hearty good-byes and Paul was once again on his own, standing under the star studded canopy of the night.

  It felt a lot colder than it had before his lift and Paul zipped up his jacket and turned his collar up to shield his face from the cutting wind.

  Had he really just climbed out of a warm, comfortable, friendly truck cab because he’d heard a voice that sounded like the Magur’s? How crazy was that?

  Could he have imagined it? What was he doing following instructions in his head! He was going the right way for a padded cell and a tightly buckled straightjacket.

  ‘Your sanity is safe,’ said a voice in the dark.

  Paul span around and there behind him, where seconds before there had been nothing but wind and starlit roadside stood the Magur as calm and inscrutable as ever.

  ‘Glad to hear it.’ Paul replied sincerely.

  ‘Come, we have a long way still to go.’

  And without waiting to see if he was following, she stumped off down the verge, supporting herself on her gnarled, wooden staff. Paul watched her for a second, dumbfounded.

  Who exactly was this wizened old woman, with the power to materialize in and out of existence and read his mind?

  He was deeply uneasy with the idea that she could talk into his head and if it wasn’t for the proof of it staring him in the face, would have written it off as downright impossible.

  He ran after her figure receding into the enveloping darkness of the night, till breathing heavily, he fell into step beside her.

  The moon was rising in the sky and bright enough now for Paul to make out a bit of the surrounding countryside. Above him he could see the lights of an airplane cruising in to land at the airport behind the motorway. He followed the lights with his eyes, wistfully envying those anonymous people their passports, wallets and comfortable normality.

  Ahead, away from the glow of the city, the road ran straight, past ploughed fields, to disappear in a point of perspective where the darkness of the night overwhelmed it, blurring its edges till nothing could be seen.

  The Magur, despite her seeming frailty and age, set a brisk pace and Paul had to stride to keep up. For a 78,000 year old woman, she sure had good walking legs, he thought to himself.

  ‘You know that was a great lift you just got me out of,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied simply, ignoring his disgruntled tone. ‘But we are going to Alesia, not Lithuania.’

  Paul shrugged, she had a point.

  As they walked, the memories of his most recent vision came rushing back to him and he realized there were some burning questions that needed answers, questions that had somehow been pushed aside by good music, food and company. But quite where to start he wasn’t sure.

  Alien Invaders?

  Test-tube babies?

  Religion?

  Jesus! It was starting to sound like a science-fiction plot and sci-fi was his least favorite genre. If he was going to be cast in a movie plot why couldn’t it be a romance or at least a comedy?

  ‘Why do I need to know all this stuff?’ he asked, ‘I mean, I’ve already agreed to take on your little delivery job haven't I? Isn’t that enough?’

  Before the Magur had time to answer, another thought occurred to Paul.

  ‘Hey, did Elodie know all this? You know, alien Invaders and laboratories making humans and all that?’

  ‘No, not all of it,’ replied the Magur simply.

  ‘So, you’re saying I know more than Elodie?’ Paul couldn’t help a note of smugness entering his voice.

  The Magur glanced across at him.

  ‘It is too early for conceit. A few history lessons do not make you better than Elodie. You have a long way to go till you can learn and match her skills. Remember, she had her whole life to learn what you need to in just three days.’

  ‘Is that even possible?’ Paul asked.

  The Magur turned her gaze on him, her eyes seeming to burn with an inner fierceness, ‘we must make it possible,’ she said. ‘If we are to avoid detection you need to access knowledge directly without my help. I know you can do it but you must believe that you can.’

  They cut off the road into a hazel coppice and Paul was silent a while as he concentrated on fending off branches, his wet shoes slipping on the uneven ground, until the Magur brought them to a narrow footpath leading through the trees.

  ‘Why would they bother making humans?’ he blurted out, ‘what's the purpose of it all?’

  ‘Quite simply, your race has been created as slaves.’

  ‘Slaves?’ Paul asked incredulously, ‘Slaves for what?’

  ‘Slaves for the Invaders, to assist them in the creation and harvesting of gold.’

  Paul did a double take. It seemed unlikely that this race of Invaders had no other motivation than the shallow, materialistic desire to get rich.

  ‘Gold? What good is gold to them?’

  ‘Gold emits a frequency very similar to that of love. As the Invaders are incapable of creating the vibration of love, we believe gold is needed to maintain life on their planet.’

  Paul thought before saying slowly,

  ‘OK, let me get this straight, you are saying that we are slaves to mine their gold?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you also said that we are needed to create gold?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense. We can’t make gold. Alchemists have been at it for centuries and I haven’t h
eard of one of them succeeding yet.’

  ‘The Invaders,’ said the Magur, ‘have learnt that Earth creates the substance gold alchemically, in response to pain, suffering and most specifically, bloodshed.’

  ‘What do you mean “bloodshed”?’ Paul questioned.

  ‘The wars and genocide that the human race has experienced are no more nor less than sacrificial rituals instigated by the Invaders.’

  ‘What?’ Paul protested.

  ‘Every galactic cycle of 26,000 years, the Invaders exploit and pollute the planet to the brink of no return.’ She stopped walking and turned to look at him. He could feel her eyes pierce into his, willing him to see what she had seen, inviting him to travel along her gaze, into her mind. She continued to speak, ‘Maximum destruction creates the most gold. Their aim is to cause pain to the Earth, not kill her. And you have been designed to help them achieve this goal.’

  ‘The earths not alive! It can’t feel pain!’ Paul interjected, ‘it’s a ball of rock full of molten lava spinning round the sun.’

  He stared confrontationaly at her through the darkness, daring her to contradict him. But as he looked at her steady, inscrutable gaze, he perceived a depth of integrity welling up from within her and he knew, however outrageous her ideas might sound to him, she was speaking from a place of total honesty. Paul felt instinctively that if he had her powers of telepathy, or mind-reading or whatever it was and could see inside her, he would find a mind free of deception or hidden agendas.

  Her whole hypothesis was shocking. How could human history be nothing more than a designed conspiracy of destruction? Admittedly, you didn’t have to search too far to find plenty of evidence to support her theory but still ... Paul remembered the Commander’s words in the vision and asked,

  ‘So they’ve done this whole destruction, gold harvest thing before? That’s what the Commander meant by “the mistakes of our predecessors”?’

  ‘Yes, the Invaders first came 78,000 years or three harvests ago, the time when the Magur peopled the Earth.’

  ‘So what were their mistakes then?’

  ‘Last cycle, they scorched the Earth with weapons so powerful that the planet was brought to the point of extinction and they found consequently that their harvest was diminished. They have learnt that a drawn out, gradual campaign of suffering and destruction yields the best harvest.’

  Paul struggled as he tried to digest this information.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, spotting a flaw, ‘if this is the 3rd harvest, why didn’t you do your thing with the crystal, you know, and sort it all out the other times?’

  The Magur replied with a note of sadness to her voice,

  ‘The first time we tried to re-connect the crystal we failed, not realizing that it must be done from within your dimension.’

  ‘And the second?’

  ‘The second, armageddon came early, before we reached the moment of galactic alignment.’

  ‘So it’s 3rd time lucky then?’ Paul replied light-heartedly.

  ‘Let us hope so,’ she answered somberly, ‘the element of surprise is with us. Though the Invaders know about the crystal, they have underestimated the resourcefulness of the Magur and are unaware of our survival.’

  They each lapsed into their own thoughts, their feet unconsciously moving steadily forward along the woodland path. Paul felt revitalized by the sandwich and vodka and stimulated by the coffee. His mind whirled, spinning this new information around in his head, as the stars whirled and spun in slow motion high above him.

  The coppiced woodland they’d been walking through abruptly ended, the footpath continuing over a small humpbacked bridge. They crossed it and descended down some stone steps to join the towpath of a canal. On the far side of a pair of lock gates, Paul could see the last straggling houses of a village.

  A motley selection of boats and barges were moored along the canal, some with yellow lights still burning behind drawn curtains.

  Paul wondered what time it was, remembering to block the instinct to consult his broken watch. It couldn’t be much past half eleven or maybe midnight he reckoned. He scraped the clods of mud that clung to his shoes onto the concrete towpath as he walked, the moon silently keeping pace, bobbing above the tree branches on his left hand side.

  ‘So,’ Paul said into the night, following his train of thought, ‘according to your theory, we’re just a factory farmed breed, manipulated to destroy our planet and ourselves for the invader’s gain. Is that it?’

  ‘It is,’ the Magur replied. ‘Your civilizations and societies have been seeded and created with that in mind. At the beginning of the cycle, royal and aristocratic lines were bred to serve as intermediaries between you and the Invaders. They are created to govern you and have been continually crossbred with the Invaders to give them a higher proportion of their “blue blood”. Of course this also lowers their ability to feel emotion, making them capable of compassionless actions. By using these royal lineages, coupled with the divisions of language, race and religion, the Invaders have engineered warfare and ecological destruction throughout the centuries. Now the fleet is on the point of return, the stockpiles of gold are amassed, ready to load and the third armageddon is imminent.’

  Paul strode on in silence for a while, thinking it all over. If you looked at it her way, the whole human race could be seen to be working unwittingly for the Invaders program. Everyone from politicians, to bureaucrats, to policemen to teachers, even himself, were part of a society constructed by the Invaders, for their own gain. As Paul’s feet moved ever forward down the concrete towpath, he mulled it all over, trying to look objectively at the evidence.

  Why humans had, since the beginning of history, chosen to place value on gold, a seemingly useless, soft, shiny metal, was a question that had always perplexed him?

  And then, where was it all now?

  All the gold that had been found in the American gold rushes, or looted by the Spanish conquistadors from the Mayan and Aztec hoards?

  The banks and governments of the world had traded it with us, the people, for paper currency and plastic credit cards, locking it away in high security vaults.

  If you believed the Magur’s story, Paul supposed, there was a certain ingenuity in the way gold had been amassed and then withdrawn from circulation.

  But still, could this plan have really been played out without anyone realizing what was going on?

  It was hard to know ...

  And then what about the colonial history of Europe, as each nation spread their Empires, gathered gold and exterminated indigenous populations?

  It certainly had a hint of the invader agenda about it.

  Across a field of vines, Paul could see a grand, symmetrical chateau shrouded by the black silhouettes of tall cedar trees.

  Some lights were still on in the upstairs rooms and Paul’s mind switched to Mme Dubois and the society. Well, some people had known about it, he corrected himself, wondering where they were now and what had happened to them.

  ‘Sounds like its been a bit of a walkover for the Invaders so far then ...’ he said aloud.

  ‘They have had their troubles,’ the Magur replied cryptically. ‘The Invaders never bargained for the tenacity of the Magur DNA that they used in your creation.'

  ‘How d’you mean?’ Paul asked.

  ‘The Magur genes have the innate ability to re-bundle and heal themselves. Through the generations these dominant genes have resurfaced and humans have re-found their way to the higher emotions of compassion and kindness and love.’

  ‘Is that what they meant, you know, about sex re-connecting the DNA?’ Paul asked, another line from the vision coming back to him.

  ‘Yes, in order for humanity to successfully breed, a certain amount of Magur DNA had to be left intact. Sexual energy has the possibility of raising your vibration. As your chakras start to spin again, your DNA is reorganized. It is this DNA that has been the thorn in their sides throughout the ages.’

  �
�Doesn’t seem to me to have been that big a thorn.’

  ‘There you are wrong. Why else would the Invaders have felt the need to condition your beliefs about sex to such an extent, mixing it with violence and domination, guilt and sin. A human who re-finds his power will not mine their gold or fight their wars and they know it. Throughout the last few thousand years, genetic throwbacks have continually arisen, the spirit of the ancient people rising up against the Invaders oppression.’

  Paul thought about that statement for a while. Maybe you could break human history down to being a struggle between the two sides of humanities genetic heritage. Could it be that the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi and Mother Theresa to name a few, were people whose Magur DNA had started to fix itself? It was certainly an intriguing theory.

  Maybe the recent upsurge of environmental campaigns and charities like OXFAM and the Red Cross were all symptoms of those Magur genes rising to the surface of our consciousness?

  Paul sighed to himself.

  He didn’t know what to believe, but in a way there was a sense of comfort and relief to be found in the concept.

  Paul had always believed that the bottom line was that people were basically, at their core, dominated by short-sighted self-interest.

  But if you bought the Magur’s tale, he realized, humanity was essentially a blameless victim and could be forgiven for all the genocide, slavery, greed and destruction it had perpetrated whilst under the cold, manipulative power of the Invaders.

  The scattering of barges and boats on the water had been left well behind now and the canal was an empty, shimmering streak of reflected moonlight stretching silently ahead of them.

  The energy and positivity Paul had felt earlier was fading now, as the kilometers passed steadily under their feet, and he found his mind returning to its familiar track.

  Where exactly were they going?

  Was it all really going to be over in 3 days? Would he ever see Julie and the kids again?

  And when was he going to find his next meal and somewhere warm to sleep?

  The Magur, as had become her habit, answered his thoughts directly,

  ‘We are going to a point of power where the pulse of the Earth still beats with enough strength.’

  ‘Enough strength to do what?’ Paul wondered aloud.

  ‘To help you to rearrange your molecular structure,’ she replied simply.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Unless you can modulate your frequency, you have no chance of success when the solstice dawn breaks over Alesia.’

  Paul was silent and noticing that she’d ignored his other questions, he plodded wearily onwards.

  The canal passed through a sleeping village, the houses huddled tightly round a squat, stone church and as they passed, Paul found himself gazing with a kind of longing at their drawn curtains and closed shutters. He felt alone, excluded from the secure mundanity and comfort of these sleeping people’s lives.

  Was he ever going to get back home to the normality and routine of his working life?

  Paul wondered what Julie and the kids were doing now? Sleeping probably.

  Had they thought about him before they’d gone up to bed this evening?

  It was ironic really, that he, Paul, of all people should get mixed up in this business. Wouldn’t it have been better if it was Julie here, now, in his place? She would have been so much more open-minded and predisposed to believe the Magur’s stories than he was. But no, he wouldn’t wish the kind of danger and discomfort he was in on her.

  Paul could feel a disheartened weariness creeping up on him as he struggled to match the Magur’s seemingly effortless pace.

  The moon had moved silently across the sky as they’d walked and it now lay directly in front of them, its reflection on the murky water shining back in perfect clarity.

  After another couple of weary kilometers the Magur turned abruptly off the towpath, leading the way across a field of grape vines, their gnarled, twisting stems laid out in orderly lines.

  They followed a wide, grassy path between the rows of vines, picking their way over the discarded, pruned branches that lay scattered to either side as the land rose up in a gentle slope away from the canal.

  At the end of the vineyard they ducked between the strands of a barbed wire fence, continuing up the hill over closely grazed grass, Paul silently following, longing for a rest. As they neared the top, Paul could make out a scattering of dark shapes rising up from the grass.

  He strained his eyes into the darkness ahead trying to figure out what they could be, as step by laborious step, his heavy feet followed the Magur’s outline across the damp grass and up the hill.

  It wasn’t until they were maybe twenty paces away and one of the shapes raised its head lowing gently, that Paul realized they were nothing more than cows, sleeping on the hillside.

  The Magur made an answering sound, somewhere between a deep, musical note and a moan and the resting cattle seemed to relax, their jaws steadily chewing, their big, calm eyes following the course of the two travelers as they quietly picked their way through the herd.

  Just beyond the cattle, squatted on the top of the hill, Paul could make out a dark silhouette against the star speckled sky.

  It was too big to be an animal, Paul thought, as he trudged behind the Magur directly towards it, his mind too weary to care much and his concentration more focused on putting one heavy foot in front of the other than anything else.

  As the Magur reached the shape, Paul could see it was composed of three, mighty stones, the first two protruding from the earth and supporting the third; a massive, weathered slab of granite laid across them.

  A stunted thorn tree and a collection of brambles trailed out from the base of the stones.

  A dolmen, Paul thought, the word coming suddenly to mind as he remembered pictures he’d seen in archaeology books. The Magur squatted neatly down on her heels and began untying a small leather bag strung from her waist.

  Paul flopped down beside her and rested his head against the solid mass of stone, physical exhaustion overwhelming him.

  He watched passively, content just to rest as the Magur busied herself removing a small, clay pot from the leather pouch.

  She gently blew into it for a minute or so, quietly intent on her task and Paul sat up, his interest getting the better of his fatigue. She was carrying fire! he realized, marveling at her self-reliance.

  He watched fascinated as she opened another bag and carefully sprinkled something over the clay pot. At once, dense wafts of resinous smoke filled the air around them, flowing out of the clay pot before being dispersed by the night breeze.

  The Magur started to sing in a low undertone, her voice rising and falling, undulating rhythmically and Paul listened carefully, feeling strangely calmed by her tones. It was like no music he’d ever heard, part song, part chant, a complex melody weaving through it all.

  Paul watched mesmerized as the ribbon of smoke rippled and uncurled in front of his eyes, seeming paradoxically so solid and three dimensional and yet so transparent and ethereal as it vanished into the night.

  Her song gradually rose in volume and despite his inquisitiveness he didn’t dare interrupt her to ask what she was doing.

  After a minute or so she finished, replacing and retying the bag of resin and the clay pot onto her belt. Finally she turned to Paul, her eyes burning deeply into his,

  ‘The stories of the Earth are stored in stone and bone,’ she said, ‘now you must use your breath and intention to feel your way into the Earth, to read what is written there. You must learn how to access information yourself, without my help. If you can do this, we will avoid detection. Ask to be shown what you need to know.’

  Despite his fatigue, Paul’s mind protested. What did she mean “use your breath and intention to access information”? All he wanted to do was rest.

  ‘The energies of this place are willing to help you. Let the pulse of Earth’s heartbeat into yourself,’ the Mag
ur said. ‘All of existence is made of the same molecular structure. Reality is vibration. It is only your belief that holds the illusion of your separateness in place. Surrender that illusion now ...’ She was starting to sound like one of Julie’s airy-fairy visualization CDs, Paul thought as he listened to her words, enjoying the soothing images they created but failing to grasp their meaning.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, in front of his closed eyelids he saw a tunnel of spiraling colored lights.

  From a thousand miles away he could hear the Magur’s soothing murmur gently urging him onwards,

  ‘let go of your thoughts and trust yourself ...’

  Paul followed her words, breathing in and out and suddenly he was tumbling backwards, carried by the helix down the tunnel and into the Earth.

  And then, without knowing quite how it happened or being aware of the transition, Paul finds himself high up, overlooking a dry and arid land.

  Nestled below him, in the folds of the baked, brown, desert sands lies a great city.

  Spires, turrets and glimpses of lush, green foliage rise up from behind its enclosing walls.

  The sun is high in the sky, hot and vital.

  Paul knows instinctively that he’s far back in the past, maybe two or three thousand years ago, maybe more.

  He looks out to the horizon and sees a glittering line, a cloud of dust rising behind it.

  Instantaneously his vision zooms in and he sees a vast army.

  Helmets, chest plates, shields, spears and banners glinting in the sunlight.

  Teams of horses are dragging massive wooden catapults and siege towers steadily towards the city.

  Paul’s vision draws slowly back until he has both the advancing army and the city in view.

  The city is quiet, hushed.

  Hundreds of people look silently out across the shimmering sand.

  The only sounds are the occasional barking of dogs and the braying of donkeys.

  As Paul looks on, captivated by the scene, he sees an energetic glow pulsating and shimmering from the earth beneath the city. The glow radiates outwards, like a star, lines of light stretching across the desert and Paul realizes instinctively that this city is built on a power point.

  Time seems to speed up.

  The sun sinks down over the dusty plain and the shadows of the city walls lengthen.

  Thousands of tents sprawl across the desert.

  Night falls and a hundred fires twinkle like stars in the velvet blackness.

  Silence settles briefly between the dark of night and the grey of dawn.

  In a blaze of lightening shades of purple, mauve and orange, the sun rises on the far horizon, reflecting the sharp glint of steel.

  Horses neigh and armor clanks.

  The horns blare.

  Paul watches as the mass of humanity below him assemble into a tight, fighting formation, a solid glittering wall of steel.

  Now, there is only silence, a silence so heavy and loaded that Paul’s heart chills.

  Another horn blows, low and long and the battle starts.

  Paul watches, both fascinated and horrified, as swarms of arrows fly through the air.

  Flaming missiles bombard the city.

  Ladders are raised and climbed only to be thrown down.

  As the sun rises higher, the battle rages in a glittering, shimmering chaos.

  Cries and shouts of pain and the horrific screaming of horses distorted in the hot air.

  The dead bodies pile up around the walls, the frenzy of fighting replaced by the low moans of the dying.

  Wreathes of smoke drift up from the charred remains of buildings and the vultures circle patiently above.

  Paul gulps down a lump in his throat, feeling like he’s never felt before; the tragedy of war, the pain, the suffering and waste of human life.

  But even as these feelings engulf him, Paul is aware of something else occurring.

  Time appears to have speeded up again, day following night following day, disorientating him like a strobe light.

  Where before the battle he had perceived a pulse of energy rising out of the Earth, now as the sun, moon and stars revolve in a rapid progression around him, Paul perceives the fear saturated blood of the slaughtered soaking into the desert sands, the pulse of energy repelled, retreating and diminishing deep into the Earth.

  The scene starts to shimmer and fade as another image asserts itself on his vision and Paul finds himself yet again in that sumptuously decorated chamber, filled with strange richly carved furniture, hanging tapestries and golden ornaments lining the walls.

  In the centre is a heavy, gilded table and around it stand a group of tall men.

  With a jolt of fear, Paul recognizes the high pale face and emotionless eyes of the Commander as one of the men speaks,

  ‘The battle proved successful. The Canaan line is down.’

  ‘Good,’ replies the Commander with satisfaction.

  As suddenly as it had begun, it was over and Paul was sat on the damp grass, cold starlight raining gently down on him as he adjusted to being back in his own reality.

  In a flash of understanding, Paul saw the sequence and meaning of his vision. It all slotted neatly into place with what the Magur had told him. It was a plan, a manipulation!

  The Commander had sited the city there on a crossing of ley-lines, a power-point, intentionally, Paul realized with a shock.

  It was one thing listening to the Magur telling him these things but quite another seeing and experiencing them himself.

  The Magur, still squatting motionlessly at his side, smiled across at him.

  ‘Was that real?

  How did it happen?

  Won’t the Agents know where we are and come after us again?’ Paul blurted in a rush of panic.

  ‘Relax,’ the Magur replied calmly, ‘they cannot see us. You found your own way in and succeeded in accessing the Earth’s memories directly. Come, you are cold and we must keep moving.’

  Paul realized she was right, a chill numbness had crept into his bones while he had sat at the dolmen and he stumbled to his feet, clapping his arms together and shaking his legs to restore his circulation.

  As they set off, moving away from the dolmen and down the far side of the hill, Paul felt strangely revived. Where only minutes ago his muscles had felt weak, each step an effort, now he felt an invigorating spring to his stride.

  Even the stars above and around them seemed brighter and closer, tiny pulses of color glinting out across the universe.

  The Magur answered his unspoken thought, her voice drifting back through the silence of the night,

  ‘Energy is always available to you, from the Earth, the Sun, the moon and the Stars ... it is just a question of knowing how to access it.’

  Despite how real the vision had seemed whilst he was in it, Paul’s mind protested.

  How could he have just seen something that happened so long ago? and what could she mean, “the stories of Earth were stored in stone and bone?” He needed more information before he could begin to understand what had just happened but couldn’t think quite how to articulate the questions inside himself.

  ‘So if it wasn’t you putting stuff in my head, how did it work then?’ he asked into the shadows.

  ‘Everything is recorded inside the molecular structure of reality,’ came the reply from the darkness in front of him. ‘The stones we just visited are sited at an ancient source of energy, connected to the entire planetary network of ley-lines. Combined with my request you succeeded in accessing a memory of the Earth’s past.’

  The Magur’s reply frustrated Paul. Like so many of her statements, it just led to more improbabilities and quandaries, rather than succeeding in clearly answering his questions. Sensing Paul’s confusion, she continued, her voice drifting back eerily through the night,

  ‘You are essentially one-being,’ she said, ‘Earth, rock, trees, plants, animals and humans are all aspects of the planet’s consciousness. Instead of living in separa
tion, you can learn to work with the rest of the planet, it is ready and willing to help you if you will only open your selves ...’

  Paul, his feet slipping on the damp grass stumbled down the hillside after her. He heard her words but couldn’t accept the concept. Sure, animals had a consciousness, maybe he supposed trees and plants could have too but rocks and soil? Wasn’t that pushing things a step too far?

  ‘Of course you cannot feel it. The Invaders have done their best to disconnect you from all that is real, so they can fill your hearts and minds with the narrow, limited perspective that makes you so easy to control,’ she stopped at the foot of the hill and turned to Paul, ‘As you ravage the Earth with wars and fill the oceans with your poisonous waste, can you not feel how that affects you with negativity and separates you from the depth of reality?’

  The Magur was filled with a passion and intensity that Paul had not felt in her before and in that moment he knew that whether or not he could accept these ideas, to her they were both very real and desperately important.

  She turned again, leading Paul through a gate onto a muddy track, deeply rutted by tractor tyres and Paul’s mind turned back again to the strange vision he’d just seen set in that faraway, biblical land and as much to himself as to the Magur he said,

  ‘So, are you saying that all the wars and battles of history were created by the Invaders for their own gain?’

  ‘Not just were,’ the Magur replied, ‘They have been sacrificing you from the beginning and they are still busy with it now.”

  ‘But what about freewill?’ Paul retorted, struggling with the idea that human society could really be so powerless and also so ignorant of it’s own condition.

  ‘The psychology of the Invaders is impeccable,’ the Magur replied, ‘through the spilling of your blood, they achieve not only their dual goals of weakening the Earth and creating gold but they have created a genetic memory within you of pain, revenge and hatred. So in a sense you have become self-regulating, passing your enmities on to the next generation, pitting your religious, political and ideological differences against each other, over and over again.’

  Yeah, Paul thought to himself, he could see how it kind of could make sense, he supposed, but, if human history did boil down to one big manipulation, apart from Elodie’s secret society, why had no-one realized or put up some resistance?

  Paul’s feet marched steadily onwards, occasionally jumping from one side of the track to the other to avoid the deeper mud and puddles. Ley-lines, Invaders and sacrifices aside, he wanted to keep his new socks dry for as long as possible.

  ‘Come to think of it, why didn’t you, the Magur, try and help, or warn us? After all, you’ve been around, presumably watching everything all this time?’ Paul said, a hint of accusation creeping into his voice.

  When she did reply, Paul could detect a note of sadness in her tone,

  ‘It has not been easy for us either,’ she said, ‘We were a peaceful people, unequipped to resist their aggressive technology. The handful of us who survived have been challenged to remain concealed from the Invader’s eyes.’

  ‘So where have you been all this time?’ Paul asked.

  ‘We redirected our energies into crystalline structures deep inside the Earth. In doing so we succeeded in slowing down time so our bodies did not age. From there we learned how to re-create the ancient frequency of the planet and so in a sense, we have created a parallel reality. We have been able to observe your reality but not to influence or help, until now.’

  Paul pondered her words for a while as they made their way steadily through the night. Some of the stuff the Magur said was just beyond understanding, Paul mused, and he’d have to either choose to take her word for it and believe her or not.

  In the silver light of the waxing moon, Paul could see the countryside around them had changed. The huge, ploughed fields and flat land had given way to an undulating series of small hills, covered in a patchwork of woodland and grass and increasingly Paul noticed outcrops of limestone breaking through the soil.

  They settled into silence, broken only by the steady tramp of their feet and Paul was glad to have some time to himself, to think about and digest the events and information that had bombarded his life in the last few days.

  He thought about the visions and dreams he’d been shown, from the force of alien craft arriving, the Magur creating the crystal as a blueprint, the plan to genetically engineer the human race and this most recent vision of humanity being used as a blood sacrifice. He knew that sane, educated people would reject these ideas as ludicrous but would they be right or just blind to the truth?

  He couldn’t be so sure now.

  He wanted to be objective, to run through her theories, find their faults and discredit them one by one but which ever way his mind turned, he seemed to just find further evidence and support for their validity. If you thought about it, how much real knowledge did human society have of the past?

  History books went back at their furthest to just a few thousand years ago, so how could anyone say with certainty what had or hadn’t occurred as long ago as 78,000 years?

  Paul remembered the brain-numbing boredom of assemblies at the Catholic boys school he’d gone to when they’d first moved to Essex, listening to the headmaster reading Genesis from the Bible.

  ‘And God said let us make man in our image after our likeness.’

  Who was this “our”? Wasn’t God meant to be singular?

  It wasn’t hard to imagine those words coming from the Commander’s mouth.

  Could Noah’s flood be a reference to a previous armageddon? he wondered.

  Come to think of it, the whole warlike, judgmental, controlling nature of that old testament God seemed much more in character with an alien Invader than the benign being who’d created the World.

  Paul grinned to himself, amused by the blasphemous craziness of his ideas. If he ever got out of this adventure alive he’d give the Bible another good looking over, he decided.

  The moon had arced across the sky, sinking down into the distant, hilly horizon.

  It couldn’t be far off morning, Paul thought, sensing an almost imperceptible lightening of the sky in front of them but still the Magur paced on tirelessly, leading him onwards to who knew what.

  Paul’s mind wandered again as he looked afresh at the way society was structured within pyramids of control.

  It was so totally opposed to the way indigenous tribal people like the Australian aborigines or the rain-forest pygmies lived, that from his present perspective it didn’t take a giant leap of the imagination to conjecture that modern, Western society had been modeled on an alien principle.

  As Paul walked lost in thought, he realized he was surprised at himself. He seemed to be thinking from a new space, a space of greater depth and openness that allowed him to embrace concepts that he knew just a few days ago he would have been clearly closed to. It was as if his boundaries had suddenly been blown apart, the sides of his mental box kicked wide open.

  But, he supposed, considering the things that had happened in those few days, it would be even stranger if he hadn’t adjusted his beliefs as to what was and wasn’t possible.

  Paul was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he almost walked into the Magur, who had stopped, looking down an incline across a meadow to dense woodland beyond.

  ‘We will rest there,’ she said, pointing into the valley.

  Paul followed her outstretched, bony arm and peered down through the gloom. The sky was definitely getting lighter in the east now, a band of grey blue extinguishing the stars on the horizon, the outlines of trees and rocks becoming subtly clearer as black faded to grey.

  And as he looked, Paul made out the shape of an old, stone barn, in a state of semi-dilapidation, blending into the trees that crowded around it. It was built of flat shards of stone with a sturdy-looking wooden A-frames holding up a roof of canal-shaped tiles.

  They made their way down the hillside, the grass beneath
their feet turning from grey to grey green as the light in the sky rapidly increased, to find themselves standing in front of a pair of weathered, wooden doors. They were held closed with a length of rusty chain looped over itself which Paul quickly opened. He heaved back one door which grated on the ground where the hinges had sagged and the two of them stepped inside, their eyes adjusting to the gloom.

  At the back of the barn was a half-floor piled high with mounds of loose hay and a rickety, dangerous looking, wooden ladder leading up to it.

  Beneath it, on the dusty, dirt floor stood a variety of broken discarded machines and assorted junk. It looked like a cross between an agricultural museum and a scrap yard and Paul would have been interested to poke around if he wasn’t suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of exhaustion.

  Their rest at the dolmen in the night had strangely given him a burst of extra energy, but now all he could think of doing was laying his body down in the soft hay and shutting his eyes.

  Paul would never have believed a heap of musty old hay could have so much comfort in it, but as he let his body recline and his head flop back, a deep sigh of relaxation and contentment escaped from his lips.

  He gazed upwards at the irregular selection of roughly shaped poles that served for rafters, the first rays of the rising sun sending laser-like beams of light past the broken and slipped tiles of the roof illuminating columns of dancing dust in the gloom of the barn. Paul knew he was behaving irrationally feeling quite so calm. After all, given his current situation, shouldn’t he be racked with anxiety, worry or even panic?

  Maybe, he mused, it wasn’t until you’d been so exhausted that just lying down and resting your body shrank all other concerns into insignificance.

  The Magur squatted motionlessly in the barn doorway, silently watching the red sun rise above the mist shrouded treetops.

  There was one question that he hadn't asked her, that had seemed too irrelevant until now but that fascinated him deeply. With his body splayed out now in the yielding softness of the hay, feeling exhausted yet strangely peaceful, it felt like the perfect moment.

  ‘What’s it like being a Magur?’ he called down to her, ‘I mean, do you feel different inside from me?’

  He knew what he meant but it wasn’t easy to put these things into words.

  The Magur’s voice drifted up to him from the barn doorway,

  ‘That is something I cannot tell you.’ Paul felt a moments disappointment before she continued, ‘but I can try to show you. But now you must sleep. We have still a long way to go.’

  Paul nodded, accepting her answer and pulling his fur-lined jacket around himself, he let his eyes drop shut and sleep overtake him.

  Elodie: December 19th.